Daily Thoughts 12/17/2009

Design for a Metalwork Book Cover. Pen and black ink with black, grey, and yellow wash on paper, 8.1 × 6 cm, British Museum. This is a design for a book cover to be made with black enamel patterned over gold (Foister, p. 84). Small girdle books of this sort were attached to the belt by a ring, as drawn at the top. Clasps are shown to the right. The initials may be those of Thomas Wyatt the Younger, who was later executed for leading a rebellion in Kent during the reign of Queen Mary. Date c. 1537, Hans Holbein The Younger

Daily Thoughts 12/17/2009

I was looking at Tony Geer's website who helped design Tobias Buckell's blog. He has a few books about design on the frontpage of his site. One of them which I requested is Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students (Design Briefs) (Paperback) by Ellen Lupton http://www.tonygeer.com/

I was looking at William Bentrim's blog The Pick of Literate which is on my sidebar. He reviewed something which I want to read, The Better part of Darkness by Kelly Gay. Looking forward to getting the book soon.

Right now, I am reading Six Pixels of Separation Everyone is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone by Mitch Joel. This book is not a giant collection of tools. So far, it is a reminder that social networking is about building connections over time and finding new people using tools like Google and Facebook.

I am thinking about the 52 Books, 52 Weeks program from the Bensonville Public Library. The goal is to get people reading every single week. I rather like the idea and think it could be an excellent program if done right. http://www.52books.org/about/index.htm

Daily Thoughts 12/16/2009

The Reader, plaster statuette by Jules Dalou, circa 1871- 1879. Petit Palais Museum Collection, Paris. Photographed between 1902 and 1904.

Daily Thoughts 12/16/2009

This morning, I finished reading Diving Into The Wreck. I also read the short story Dirt by Tobias Buckell in the book, Halo Evolutions, Essential Tales of the Halo Universe. Dirt was the one story which I wanted to read in the anthology. Tobias Buckell has excellent writing. I'm not that much of a fan of the Halo video game, but I do like the art work and some of the stories.

I also put two books on hold. Grandville by Bryan Talbot is already going out the door. It is on reserve at another library. The graphic novel art work looks superb. It is a mix of steampunk and talking animals. There is a lot of action. The style of the animal drawings are closer to The Wind in the Willows than anime furries though which makes it even more appealing. I also put This Book Is Overdue, How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save us All by Marilyn Johnson on hold as well.

Sometimes it is good to realize that a lot of books are not reviewed. It is important to visit bookstores and other libraries because of this. I spend time looking at different book sites, visiting bookstores, and other libraries. This is often the best way to find out what books to purchase. Traditional review sources are often quite limited. Today I was looking at the Strand Bookstore online to see what they had in philosophy and religion. They have a lot of material that is not listed on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I'll probably also search the Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Public Library catalogs as well.

An interview Keir Graff a senior editor from Booklist on the folding of Kirkus.
http://www.edrants.com/interview-with-keir-graff/

Daily Thoughts 3/22/2009

Charles Dickens in 1868. From The Leisure Hour 1904.

Daily Thoughts 3/22/2009

I am looking at the 52 books, 52 weeks program where you give people book logs at the beginning of the year and they write down what they read each week. The goal is to get people to read 52 books in 52 weeks. It is a circulation booster and a challenge for people. This is a website with an example for a library with book reviews. Ideallly this starts at the beginning of the year. http://52books.wordpress.com/

I put two books on hold, The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen and Up The Organization by Robert Townsend. Up The Organization is considered a classic in business writing. It has been in print for over thirty years. Right now, I am reading The Speed of Trust The One Thing That Changes Everything by Stephen M.R. Covey with Rebecca R. Merrill. I was looking Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 blog and there was a book recommendation, Eat that frog! : 21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time / by Brian Tracy. We have two copies at our library; I think it will be something I will add to my reading pile.

I took some time to add https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dashboard the Google Webmasters Tool to my blog. This allowed me to look at thousands of inbound and outbound links. Great Books Audio has been sending me a lot of people. http://www.greatbooksaudio.com . Even though I have stopped subscribing to Technorati, I am still getting a lot of traffic from that site. Blogcatalog is giving me lots of traffic as well.

Sometimes when you are looking through long lists of links, you find unusual things. Yahoo has a new search service called http://glue.yahoo.com It looks a combination of a clustering search engine and a topical page. I find this kind of interesting. Apparently, my blog is appearing in their beta product repeatedly.

I am also adding Tobias Buckell to my writers section because I have appeared several times in his page as well as Biblios Book Reviews for blogs that I read.

Daily Thoughts

Illustration to American popular song "Beautiful dreamer"by Currier and Ives (between 1856 and 1907).

Daily Thoughts

On the way home, I read How to Manage an Effective Nonprofit Organization by Michael A. Sand. I am kind of neutral about this book. It serves a specific purpose which makes it hard to review. It is a series of checklists of what you need to do to effectively run a nonprofit. The lists seem accurate and to the point, but they are not that interesting. Still, the book is very practical in a sort of this is what needs to be done kind of way. It would be a good book to check to see if you are missing any specific activity in managing an effective nonprofot organization.

This morning, I started reading Halo, The Cole Protocol by Tobias Buckell. It is on the Locus bestseller list for paperbacks. The book starts out with lots of action. On the way home, I finished about half of the novel. It is a solidly entertaining serial science fiction novel. Not spectacular.

This is clearly written for those people who play the video game. Most of the references are to things which happen in the video game. The author clearly tries to follow the video games storyline. Tobias Buckell has clearly played the game. It is a good first series novel set in a serial setting like Star Trek. I think he still has to work out what makes people excited about the formula in the video game.

I am sure that he will write more books in the Halo universe. This book is clearly selling well. I think a second one will be better. I expect him to write another one. I will read it. This is light quick escapism. It is fluff which takes your mind off everyday worries.

I also went on Wikimedia to look for images of Abraham Lincoln which I could print out for my display. Wikimedia is one of my favorite sources for public domain images. I found a picture of Abraham Lincoln reading with his son Tad and a painting of Abraham Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation so far. The lady who is donating the book, The Cosgrove Report a mystery about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is coming at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon. I also have selected several books on Abrahm Lincoln to display. It is the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birthday on February 12. It is also the bicentennial of Darwin's birthday as well.

I spoke to the lady about the display and summarized J.G.A. O'Toole's biography on a single sheet of paper and put it in the display. She wants to do another display about animals in the library. I have to think about how this might be done.

I also spent a bit of time weeding the reference books. I have to weed and shift the 100s, 200s, and 300 dewey number sections in reference right now. It was a surprise project.

Six Hours Past Thursday by Jack Payne came in for me to read through interlibrary loan. I am looking forward to reading the book.

Sly Mongoose-- Tobias Buckell-- Review

Sly Mongoose-- Tobias Buckell-- Review

Sly Mongoose by Tobias Buckell is the third book in a science fiction series starting with Crystal Rain, then advancing to Ragamuffin. The setting for the third novel is quite interesting. It is on a planet like mercury with floating cities in the clouds, and very high pressure on the planet below. The clouds are acidic and the air is not breathable. It is also one of the homes of the Azteca, a human group once ruled by ruthless aliens. The Azteca have since declared the aliens false gods, and formed a democracy based on group consensus.

The story begins with a Pepper, a character who has appeared in the previous novels, falling from the sky into the dome of a floating city. Because of the alien biotechnology permeating his body, he survives the fall, although he is missing an arm and a leg in the story. This does not stop him from building a working armored suit so he can move around in the story. Pepper is the founder of the "Mongoose Men" and a member of the Dread Council on a world built by Caribbean immigrants.

Pepper has just escaped a harrowing battle with plague zombies on a passenger liner. He is wanted by several factions who want to know what happened on the ship. There are at least three different factions in the story, The Dread Council, The Azteca Consensus, and the Human League (which is virulently anti-alien).

Pepper is the center of intrigue. There is another character Timas, a teenage boy who goes to the surface sometimes to scavenge technology in a pressure suit. Timas provides the spare parts for a pressure suit so Pepper can lead the fight against the plague zombies.

This book has lots of action in it. There are battles aboard a spaceship, airship battles, pirate confrontations, and constant intrigue. The characterization is quite intriguing. The different characters in the story are culturally and individually distinct.

Pepper, one of the heros of the story leads the fight against the zombies, and must help the people of Chilo defend themselves. He helps them prepare the defenses and makes a last stand until the Mongoose Men can help. There is another hero in this story as well, Timas who has seen something which the zombies are seeking on the surface.

This was a fun book to read. The setting, plot, and characterization were all unique. Most science fiction stories are based on cardboard cutouts with aliens that are little more than substitutes for human fears. This was not one of them. An excellent addition to a series that gets better with each book. Once the action starts in this book, it does not stop until the book is done. Ragamuffin was short listed for the Hugo award. I think this book will be listed for the Hugo award and might win it.

Morning Thoughts

La Censure by George Lafosse c 1874

Morning Thoughts

I am not happy with the publisher Chelsea Green's decision to limit sales of the book Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency to Amazon.com for the first week of the release. This shows a disregard for openness in competition in the book industry. It also restricts people's choices of where to purchase books. In some ways, I am not a fan of Amazon's practices in selling books. I think it was a bad decision on the part of the publisher.

http://news.bookweb.org/6245.html

In a similar vein, September 27- October 4, 2008 is banned book week. There is a site up for booksellers and libraries http://bannedbooksweek.org/ . It shows one of my favorite books on the site, Maurcice Sendak In The Night Kitchen.

We have six of the ten Most Banned Books of 2007. Most are young adult titles or classics. I don't know why they want to ban teenage books so much. I put up a small display of the six books. I am going to try and get the other four as we go forward this month.

I am up to page 200 of Wikinomics. It is getting even more complicated. Wikinomics is writing about mashups, combining two or more sites to create a third sites. For example, you might combine google maps with the location of vacation rentals to create a new kind of information-- maps to vacation rentals.

I also took a break again and started reading Sly Mongoose by Tobias Buckell. I especially like Pepper, the main character who has been in all the novels. Pepper is the essence of being beat down and still going. I also like the new enemy, space zombies. They are a lot of fun to read about. I also like the continuity of setting. The Azteca even though they lose their alien masters, still remain a coherent culture in the novels. They proclaim that the aliens were false gods and become a democracy led by a council.

Today, I plan on doing some weeding of the business books. I still have quite a bit more to do with this.

Afternoon Thoughts, Reaper's Gale-- Steven Erikson

Kay Nielsen Illustration from East of the Sun West of the Moon, c1914


Afternoon Thoughts

Tonight is my late night. This morning, I did some desk cleaning. I got rid of more old phone books, processed some law material which had been laying on my desk for a while, and went through some of my piles of paper. I am one of those people who are a paper magnet. I attract paper to my desk. We got a directive to clean all of our desks. So, it is a cleaning day.

When I did some desk cleaning, I went back to weeding more business books. The section is starting to look much better. I like to have 8-12 inches at the end of each shelf. I can put bookends in the shelves now.

Every day this week, I am going to do a little bit of weeding and desk cleaning.

Apparently, my business book orders are doing well. Some of the books I am ordering are getting two or three hundred holds already. Many of the titles like Michael Porter's Competitive Intelligence and The Complete MBA for Dummies are new to our library cooperative. So far, I am pretty happy with the orders that are coming in.

We also got a new octagonal book display with three levels. The book display itself is kind of ugly, but it is very functional. You can display books in a 360 degree fashion. There are a lot of new books being displayed.

I reserved a few books, Lord Tophet by Gregory Frost which is the second book in a fantasy series, Sly Mongoose by Tobias Buckell. I am really looking forward to reading Sly Mongoose.
I also had a chance to look at the New York Times Bestseller List for Business and reserved The Drunkard's Walk How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow.

I spent a little bit of time picking out films for the September and October films. I am going to do an anime and a science fiction film this time. We also ordered a new microphone for the Open Microphone poetry readings. One of the patrons didn't like the current one which is not working too well. We are going to do a Spades card tournament. Cards are a dollar a pack, so it is another cheap program activity you can do.

Today has been very busy.

I was reading Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson on the train this morning. Reading this book is quite an experience, there is not a single main character. Each chapter seems to have a different viewpoint character. The story is almost historical in sweep. There are at least five main characters, Rhulad Sengar-- The Emperor, Karsa Orlong, Icarium Lifestealer, Fear Sengar, Silchas Ruin, and others. This makes the story quite interesting.

In the front of the book, there is a large map of The Empire of Lether where much of the action takes place, and a list of three pages of Dramatis Personae, these are broken down by nation or status, Letherii, Tiste Edur, The Malazans, The Awl'Dan, and Others. The names of the characters are very interesting along with the place names.

However, because there is so much action, and so many intrigues the book reads like a giant jigsaw puzzle with many pieces. I just read through it enjoying the characters who are mostly very dark in their natures.

In addition in the back of the book, there is a two page glossary describing different made up things in the fantasy setting, everything from nasty brutish creatures to weapons to groups like the Patriotists who are the the nationalistic thugs of the Letherii empire.

The book is practically impossible to review in many ways because describing the plot would take several pages. Even figuring out what is happening can be quite tricky. There are many different factions in the book with opposing goals.

Despite this I am enjoying the book. I don't try and figure out all the twists and turns, I just read taking in the complexity of the wording, the names, the setttings, the place descriptions, the characterization, and marveling at how the author can put together a book, no less a series with eight books in it that are this complex.

The setting often switches between tribesmen and city dwellers, gods and men, warriors and scholars. This is what makes the book so interesting to read.

The book is very dark and bloody. There are ghosts, demons, witches, shamans, and all the things that go bump in the night. However, they are not the familiar fantasy creatures for the most part, and they are described very differently than most other fantasy books. The names like Emlava-- a sabre tooth cat say it all.

The setting is a fantasy empire, The Empire of Lether. It is kind of hard to pinpoint where it would be in terms of time. The setting is not medieval, and it is not quite roman. It has that feeling of a bygone age much like Robert E. Howard's Cimmeria might where things mix and flow together.

This is book seven in the series. It is a tome of a book. 823 pages long of complexity. There is an eighth book in the series coming out soon.

Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell-- Review

Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell-- Review

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is the first book in the Ragamuffin series. Ragamuffin was the second book. There is a third book in the series which I am hoping to read soon. I thought this book was better in many ways than Ragamuffin. The setting is wonderful. It is set in the country of Nanagada, on a planet in the far future. Caribbeans and South Americans settled the planet originally creating two distinct cultures, the Azteca and the Nanagadans. There are also the Tolteca who are mentioned briefly in the story who have fled the Azteca homeland.

The story is set around one John De Brun, a fisherman who has lost his memory. He is also the hero of the story who has to make a long journey to recover a fallen starship. He must escape the Azteca, and save the day. There is escape, capture, intrigue, fighting, and all the good stuff that makes an adventure story. I like the soldiers of the Nanagadans, the Mongoose Men.


The Azteca are a group of humans who are ruled by the Teotl, aliens who have taken on the role of cruel gods from humanities past. The aliens are trying to keep humans in a fallow state as worshippers and soldiers. They have reshaped human culture along ancient lines to be cruel and ruthless. The aliens are masters of biological engineering and have created a few monsters to add some spice to the story.

There is a counterpart among the Nanagadans, the Loa, a group of aliens who have taken on religious purpose of their own. When the humans arrived on the planet, they became involved in an ancient conflict between the Loa and Teotl. Humans became unwitting pawns in the initial conflict. There is a faction of humans, the Preservationists who have driven the Loa underground and redeveloped human technology.

The technology in this story is interesting in addition to the Caribbean and Aztec style cultures. Most of the fighting occurs using steam age technology. There are battles in airships, in the jungle, on the ice, and on ships. You see glimpses of a bygone cataclysm. There are rusted hulks of ships in the oceans, in the north, there are frozen over cities with glass office towers.

As the story advances, we learn John De Brun is more than he seems. He does not age, and sometimes he has uncanny skills of survival.

An intriguing story with a unique setting. I really enjoyed reading this book.

Thoughts For Today

New York library on opening day, shot between 1910 and 1915 from the Library of Congress Flickr photoarchive.

Thoughts For Today

I read some more of The Public Domain on the train to work this morning. I also started reading Acacia Book One: The War With The Mein by David Anthony Durham. It is a fantasy novel.

I have been running around making sure everything was running right for the film we were showing today, Cars by Pixar. I had to switch the dvd players with the childrens room. Also, I asked a volunteer to buy soda and popcorn at the supermarket. We like to get the little single packets of popcorn because they are neater. This was billed as a family film for both childrens and adults. I ended up starting the film five minutes late. I think over twenty different people attended the film. This is actually a pretty good turnout for us.

I haven't done any ordering today. I have quite a bit of new reference books to look at to make sure everything is done correctly, and a number of looseleafs to file for the law collection.

I am waiting for them to finish process the manga and science fiction books which came in a couple days ago. I really want to look at the new Vampire Hunter D manga which came out last month. Also, Peter David did a mass market paperback novelization of the film Iron Man. I rather like Peter David's writing. He is entertaining and funny.

This afternoon, I did more looseleaf updating of the law collection. I replaced the supplement section for Basic Legal Forms With Commentary. I also put in some updated reference books in the reference collection. These are just everyday things that need to be done.

I also glanced through Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and the New York Times Book Review. I will look through Library Journal tomorrow. There was one new title in Publishers Weekly which looked interesting, Sly Mongoose by Tobias Buckell. It is science fiction.

We also have been getting requests for Neil Gaiman books, especially, the Sandman series of graphic novels. Sandman is published under the Vertigo imprint of DC comics. I'll definitely order some of these in my next graphic novel order.

The book The Public Domain has a blog about copyright attached to it. http://copyrightfree.blogspot.com

Tobias Buckell-- Ragamuffin-- Review

The Chupacabra

Tobias Buckell-- Ragamuffin is a science fiction novel. It is his second novel. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the first book in the setting, Crystal Rain from the library. I had reserved it at the library, but it never came.

In a way, this novel is quite hard to review because of its non-traditional structure. It is a novel in three parts. The first part is the opening sectin of the novel, Nashara, the main heroine of the novel is on a human reservation, she assassinates an alien Gahe breeder for the Human League so she can earn passage off world. The opening is a bit confusing because it immediately jumps into action sequences without explanation.

The second part of the novel is set on Angade, a human world which has been cut off from the wormhole network which links the different worlds in the story. The world is very interesting, it contains two cultures, a kind of Caribbean island culture led by the original settlers, and a proto-Aztec culture controlled by the alien Teotl. The action starts in the second part when the alien Teotl reopen the wormhole leading to Angade. The Teotl are the last remnants of their species fleeing genocide by the Satrapy, the masters of the wormholes. The Teotl have a message, the Satrapy wants to wipe out the human race.

The third part brings together the first two parts in a climactic battle between the human agents of the Satrapy, the Hongguo who are charged with suppressing human technology and the Ragamuffins, a group of human pirates of caribbean island descent. The setting is around the world of Angade.

This is a difficult complex books in many ways. There is use of dialect, and presentation of cultures not normally seen in most science fiction settings. The different factions, the Human League, the Ragamuffins, the Angade, the Hongguo represent different human cultures. The Hongguo appear to be Asian, the Angade a mix of Aztec and Caribbean, and the Human League might be Russian. Add to the mix the alien Teotl and the alien Satrapy and you have a very complex world.

The best part of this book is the world and culture building. The setting is quite unique. Humans are not on top. They live at the edges of the Satrapy on reservations, on backwards worlds, as second class citizens on space stations. Earth has been cut off from the wormhole network so they develop their own civilization. Technology is suppressed by the Hongguo so there is not a lot of super technology.

The alien Teotl are convincingly done. They are well described as aliens. The Satraps are in the background acting as puppet masters, so their presence is felt as a kind of hidden force.

There is a lot of action in the novel. This could have been done better. Some of the fights are quite confusing. I thought the fight sequences should have been edited better. Sometimes what is happening is lost in the action.

I will read the first novel, Crystal Rain because I like the setting. I don't know of any other authors with a Caribbean viewpoint in science fiction. It really is a unique book. He also is unique in writing science fiction with multiple human racial backgrounds in his stories. Most people do not do this. They tend to make the aliens the other races.

I found the novel on the web while reading an interview of Tobias Buckell. Tobias Buckell has his own blog. http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/ . There is a lot of material on what it is like to write a novel and how you sell your first novel.